Wildfires

As the chessboard for control of the narrative of why our Earth has seen an uptick in extreme weather continues, we as citizens need to start holding our elected officials responsible for mis-truths they speak and the media outlets that give them a voice. When there are outrageously bogus statements that can be debunked with simple scientific fact check, we need to ask questions why they said such things and demand answers and retractions. This is one such instance, California governor Jerry Brown says "since civilization emerged 10,000 years ago, we haven't had this kind of heat condition, and it's going to continue getting worse and that's the way it is." This is false. I demand answers from the governor why he said such things. You should too.

A map released by the BC Wildfire Service on Wednesday shows where lightning struck on July 31, contributing to 132 new wildfires.

The BC Wildfire Service says lightning strikes in the province's Interior have sparked more fires, with 132 flaring up on July 31. The service is currently responding to a total of 305 fires.

Emergency BC issued evacuation alerts Wednesday for several rural properties on the south side of Quesnel Lake near Williams Lake. An evacuation alert remains in effect for Cawston and Keremeos in B.C.'s Similkameen region.

Evacuation alerts are issued to give residents time to prepare for a possible evacuation order.

The B.C. government has issued a smoky skies bulletin for the province, and Metro Vancouver Regional District has warned of poor air quality in the eastern part of the region and the Fraser Valley. For Metro Vancouver, air quality is expected to improve as the weather cools down this week.

A pair of wildfires that prompted evacuation orders for nearly 20,000 people barreled Monday toward small lake towns in Northern California, and authorities faced questions about how quickly they warned residents about the largest and deadliest blaze burning in the state.

Ed Bledsoe told CBS News he did not receive any warning to evacuate his home in the city of Redding before the flames came through last week and killed his wife, Melody, and his great-grandchildren, 5-year-old James Roberts and 4-year-old Emily Roberts.

"If I'd have any kind of warning, I'd have never, ever left my family in that house," Bledsoe said.

One month into California's fiscal year, the state has already spent about one-fourth of its emergency fund fighting fires across the state. Now with more than a dozen large wildfires raging and firefighting resources stretched thin, crews are on the way from as far as the East Coast.

There are now 12,000 firefighters on the lines battling 17 large wildfires, which have destroyed more than 1,000 structures and continue to threaten an additional 25,000 homes, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. At least eight deaths have been attributed to the fires, which have burned about almost 240,000 acres, or about 375 square miles up and down the state.

"We're very active right now across the state with fires," said Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean. "Vegetation is so dry, especially with the winds that are coming and have been coming."

Cal Fire said Monday that hot and dry conditions have contributed to the wildfire risk statewide, including low humidity and high winds in some areas of Northern California. The southern portion of the state has baked in triple-digit temperatures in some inland areas in recent weeks.

Adding to the wildfire risk are an estimated 129 million dead trees in California forests due to years of drought and beetle infestation, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

More than 52,000 residents have been evacuated in the large fires, according to Cal Fire.

The blaze that reduced the area to the east of Greece's capital to resemble a post-apocalyptic landscape has killed 91 people, the Greek officials confirmed. The death toll is likely to rise.

According to authorities, most of these people died as a result of the fire, while some drowned in the sea after fleeing the disaster.

The Greek Fire Service said that 25 people are still missing following a horrifying human and environmental disaster that hit the country's coastline close to Athens. The wildfires that devastated the southern European country last week were described as the deadliest in Europe since 1900, which makes them the worst such disaster in more than a century, according the Centre for the Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels.

The Greek authorities suspect that arson may have caused the fire and the government has come under criticism over its alleged lack of preparation for the fire season as well as over its inadequate infrastructure management.

More than 2,000 homes were damaged in the fire, Greek officials said on Friday, adding that about a quarter of these would have to be demolished. The popular seaside resort of Mati was one of the places most severely hit by the blaze.

As the blazing sun beats down, combine harvesters working the normally fertile breadbasket of Saxony-Anhalt in former communist East Germany kick up giant clouds of dust as they roll over the cracked earth.

"It hasn't really rained since April and that's the main growth period for our grains and the other crops - we've never seen anything like it," said Juliane Stein of Agro Boerdegruen, a farming conglomerate formed after German reunification in 1990.

"We've reached the point here in Germany where we're talking about a natural disaster that's a threat to our livelihood."

Comment: We're barely halfway through summer and already it has been on of the driest on record for vast swathes of the northern hemisphere:

California's raging Carr Fire has now scorched more than 48,000 acres of land, with firefighters filming how strong winds whipped flames into a deadly tornado as they battled to put out the persistent blaze.

California is facing a fire crisis at the moment with extremely dry weather making grassland ripe for the spread of wildfires. In Shasta County, where the Carr Fire is burning, an estimated 38,000 people have already fled their homes, according to ABC7.

Now firefighters servicing the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, where whole wooded areas were filmed burning bright red, have released images of the extremely dangerous conditions the face.

At least three dead and thousands evacuated as officials worry potentially devastating fire season has only just begun

At least three people have died and thousands have been evacuated in California as eight active wildfires continue to burn across the state. More than 3,000 firefighters have been deployed to contain the flames, and the destruction is expected to worsen throughout the weekend as high temperatures and dry conditions inhibit efforts.

The state governor, Jerry Brown, has declared a state of emergency in northern California's Shasta county, and in southern California's Riverside county, to help provide local fire crews with the resources they need to battle the blazes. Donald Trump has not yet commented on the fires.

Redding, a city of 92,000 near the Oregon border, is at grave risk from the Carr fire, which has so far killed two people. The fire is only 3% contained and has already scorched more than 44,450 aces. "Really, we're in a life-saving mode right now in Redding," said the Cal Fire battalion chief, Jonathan Cox. "We're not fighting a fire. We're trying to move people out of the path of it because it is now deadly, and it is now moving at speeds and in ways we have not seen before in this area."

The Carr fire erupted on Monday 23 July and is being propelled by "extreme fire behavior and challenging wind conditions", according to CalFire officials. The blaze continues to threaten nearly 5,000 structures and 65 buildings have already been incinerated.

Comment: Seven of California's 10 largest fires on record have occurred since 2000 including last year's Thomas fire, the largest blaze in the state's recorded history.

Meanwhile in Greece the death toll has reached 87 people, with countless more missing, after devastating wildfires decimated seaside communities outside Athens.

The first time Yosemite National Park closed because of wildfires, the iconic tourist attraction was celebrating its 100th birthday in 1990 and three major blazes shut down access for nine days.

On Wednesday, authorities shut down the popular Yosemite Valley portion of the park and told visitors to get out because of the unpredictable and difficult Ferguson Fire that has been chewing up forest and grasslands since it erupted 25 miles west of the park on July 13.

The closure is expected to last at least through Sunday, with fire officials saying they are making a concerted effort to stop the fire's advance through extremely steep, rugged terrain that makes battling the 60-square-mile fire particularly difficult.

"The terrain is very, very nasty in this area, both on the north and the south," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jim Mackensen said Wednesday as new evacuations were being ordered in Mariposa County. "Some of the fuel beds in the south have no recorded fire history going back 150 years.

"It's just choked with trees and dead trees and brush that have been accumulating over the years."

The death toll from the raging wildfires in Greece's Attica region has risen to 80, while up to 100 people are still missing. Moscow has expressed readiness to help Athens battle the fires and deal with the aftermath.

Most people have died in the eastern resort town of Mati, which was struck by a flash fire. The streets of the now-ghost town are packed with charred and melted cars, while rescuers are searching through the burned-out buildings.

"We're going from house to house, anywhere we believe there may be someone trapped, someone who burned inside, someone missing," chief of a volunteer rescue team, Dionysis Tsiroglou, told Reuters. "So far, our search has been fruitless."